Friday 3 May 2002 20.37 EDT
First published on Friday 3 May 2002 20.37 EDT

May 6 might be just another Monday to you, but your cat is sure to have the day marked down in its diary. Cats Protection (formerly the Cats' Protection League) is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and the charity is urging cat lovers to indulge in a spot of enhanced pampering. For your cat, it may also be an opportunity for some quiet reflection on just how far things have come for the humble moggie.

The league began at a time when cats were not generally regarded with affection. The organisation's history charts the rise of the domestic cat; from lowly mouser to the nation's favourite pet. In the 19th century, Britain's booming cities were teeming with cats. An RSPCA tract published in 1857 suggested "almost every household has a cat", but centuries-old superstitions about cats lingered in the public imagination. Inevitably, though, there were some who succumbed to feline charms and set about reversing their fortunes. The first cat show was held at Crystal Palace, south London, in 1871, organised by Harrison Weir, who was keen to change public attitudes. As the popularity of pedigree cats grew, a small band of trailblazers turned their attention to the welfare of the everyday mog.

Progress was slow, however, and the lot of the average cat had not greatly improved by 1927, when Jesse Wade organised a public meeting at Caxton Hall, London, where the league was born. Initially, the organisation's objective was to educate the public and raise the status of cats. Today's cat lovers may be startled to learn that one of CP's early initiatives was to inform the public of humane ways to kill cats. It even appealed for donations of cotton wool and bandages to be used for chloroforming cats. This may seem brutal, but there were few urban vets at the time, no animal shelters and thousands of homeless cats. The current policy of sheltering and rehoming wasn't conceived until much later.

CP managed to struggle through both the depression and the second world war, advising the public on keeping cats safe during air raids and how to feed a cat on rations. The feral cat population of Britain's major cities soared during the war, as people's attentions were focused on matters of life and death rather than their domestic animals. It's a legacy that is still being dealt with by animal welfare organisations today.

The 1950s brought the nation unprecedented levels of health, wealth and stability. Clawing on the coat tails of this momentous social change, was the cat (with the dog chasing along behind). For perhaps the first time in history, ordinary people had enough spare time and money to keep an animal in the house solely for companionship, a privilege previously only enjoyed by the affluent. The cat, at long last, had nuzzled its way into the heart of the British family. It wasn't just down to economics, however.

Advances in veterinary science made it easier to keep cats. According to Anne Spencer, a former CP trustee: "The turning point that opened people's houses to the domestic cat was neutering." From the 1950s, the procedure became cheaper and more readily available, as did treatments for worms and fleas as well as mass- produced cat food products. More recent social changes in this country have seen cats overtaking dogs as the preferred pet. More of us are now living alone, in flats and in cities, and more women go out to work; all these are lifestyle choices that favour cats. Cat love has come a long way since 1927, but not everyone's got the message, and there are still millions of strays. CP's network of 29 shelters and 250 voluntary branches are kept busy helping around 170,000 cats a year.

If you haven't already got a feline companion, just imagine how much nicer your Saturday morning would be if you were curled up with a cat.